AUTHOR'S NOTE: I started writing this while Nashville and Bloodline were both on hiatus. Waiting for these shows to come back got me thinking (again!) about Eric and Tami Taylor on FNL, my all-time favourite tv couple. This story is just a way to have some fun with that FNL history percolating through a Nashville/Bloodline crossover.

CHAPTER 1:

"Moooooommm." Maddie drew out the three letter word for a good five-second whine. "This is not going to be fun. There's a huge New Year's Eve party and all my friends are going to be there, and I'm totally going to miss it being in the middle of nowhere with you and Daphne."

"Lord but that girl can whine," thought Rayna to herself. To her daughter she said in her most patient voice, "Maddie Conrad. We're goin' to the Florida Keys. We are gettin' away from this crazy media circus. YOU said you wanted to get away from the press and the cameras and just have some girl time. We're havin' some girl time. Just the three of us."

"That's right, Maddie," Daphne piped up. "Just the three of us. Girl time. No boys."

That's my sweet baby, Rayna thought. She knew it couldn't last. A few more years and the teenage hormones would kick in. She could only hope that by then Maddie was most of the way through the worst of this angry-adolescent phase so the two of them didn't drive her crazy with it.

"You said you wanted to hang out with us, Maddie," Daphne kept at her sister. "Don't you want to hang out with us. On the BEACH! In January! It's going to be so cool."

Maddie was grudging but sincere in her acquiescence. "I do want to hang out. And it will be fun to just be the three of us for a week at the beach. I just hoped we could go the day after New Year's instead of before, so I wouldn't have to miss my party."

"I know, sweet girl," Rayna cooed. "But Christmas was hard after everything that happened with Luke. And I just need some space and time away from Nashville. And I need it with my two favorite people in the whole world." Rayna was laughing now, swooping down and wrapping her arms around her daughters, threatening to tickle them. They squealed and then jumped off of Maddie's bed where Rayna had found the girls not finishing their packing as she had told them to.

"Get those bags packed, girls. We're goin' to the beach!"

"Yes!" Daphne pumped her right arm up and down in victory, a huge grin on her sweet, round face.

"The car will be here to take us to the airport in TEN MINUTES." Rayna was in full daughter-wrangling mom mode, and loving it.

As she left to get her own suitcases down the stairs, she took one more look back at the girls throwing way too many last-minute items in their suitcases: iPods, iPads, make-up, shorts, more shorts, shirts, more shirts. Rayna just smiled, her huge green eyes getting a bit moist. Her precious daughters. She'd put them through so much drama in the last year, and her heart ached for them. They needed this time away together. The girls were as forgiving as two kids could be, but she had been away too much, touring too much, dealing with too much "Ruke" drama. The girls needed their mama, and she needed them. And she needed to forget about the "wedding of the century" that didn't happen two weeks ago. Not only would this be good, it might even be fun. Bucky was covering everything at Highway 65. The Christmas-New Year's holiday was a slow time for recording anyway. Hell, she might even get to relax.

After she'd called off the wedding, the Christmas trip to Australia for the family honeymoon was cancelled as well. She should have taken the girls somewhere then, but she'd been too emotionally raw to think straight. Plus, with the media circus and the last-minute change of life plans, she thought the girls should get to spend Christmas with Teddy and her, hunkered down in their home. Three days after Christmas, she was going crazy being in Nashville, trying to avoid the paparazzi, Luke, her own swirling emotions. She needed to get out of town.

…

A short two-and-a-half-hour flight later, the Jaymes-Conrad-Claybourne women were reveling in the balmy Florida air as they walked out of the Miami-Dade airport. Bucky had arranged for a car to pick them up curbside and drive them to Islamorada where they would be spending the next week enjoying the near-solitude and a much slower pace of life at The Rayburn House inn. It was Tandy's recommendation. She and a "co-worker," had apparently spent an excellent week there about fifteen years ago, though Rayna got the impression Tandy didn't remember much about the inn except what the inside of her room looked like, and how comfortable the bed was. "Uh huh. I'll bet it was the comfortable mattress that was keeping you inside all week," Rayna teased her sister.

"It's a gorgeous resort, Rayna," Tandy had kept talking, pretending not to understand the implication. "The food is amazing. You can get a bungalow away from the other guests. You're a bit out of town, so no traffic driving by or random people just dropping in who might notice you. There's a private beach out front. And the owners are the sweetest couple; they'll take such good care of you."

To keep the press at bay, Tandy booked them in under the name "Patty Davidson," a particularly snobby "mean girl" they had both hated in high school, and made sure that the owners, Sally and Robert Rayburn, knew they needed privacy and a little TLC.

When the hired car pulled into the driveway of the white, two-story clapboard inn, Daphne was the first to exclaim how "awesome!" it was. "Look at the beach! And the palm trees!"

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Rayna smiled and let out a long sigh, until then not realizing she'd been holding her breath. She could already start to feel herself letting go of a year's worth of pent-up anxiety. This was going to be a good week.

…

Sally was there to greet them personally and showed them to one of the two detached cabins that she and Robert had built for guests who needed a little more space or privacy than rooms in the main inn could provide. "We are so happy to have you here" the older woman was warm and, thankfully, not remotely star-struck. "My son Danny serves dinner on the verandah every night between 6 and 9, but if you want us to bring it to you here to cut down on the chances of being recognized by any fans who might be in the main house, you just let us know."

"Thank you so much." Rayna smiled as Sally turned to go. "We so appreciate y'all takin' such good care of us. Your place is just beautiful."

As Sally left, Rayna shut the cabin door, turned to the girls with a mega-watt, stadium show worthy grin and exclaimed, "Are we gonna have fun or what?"

Daphne had already thrown her suitcase on the bed she had picked out next to the window. "Hey," Maddie pouted, "why does Daphne get to be by the window while I have to be next to the closet?"

"Because I'm faster than you," Daphne answered before her mom could say anything. Rayna just shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "you can't argue with that logic," and decided not to intervene further. Maddie would just have to get over being a pill.

Daphne had grabbed one of the brochures off the desk in her and Maddie's room and was flipping through it. "Mom, look! It says they do snorkeling trips every day it's not raining. The next one leaves in 30 minutes. Can we go? Can we go?"

Rayna was laughing. "Yes, baby girl, we can go. But you've got to get sunscreen and a bathing suit on. Maddie, you, too."

"Can't I just sit on the beach while you two go?"

"No, you may not, young lady. We're here as a family and we're gonna have fun. Together." Rayna was doing her best to pretend Maddie wasn't being ridiculous. Surely she'd start behaving like the sweet young woman Rayna knew she could be once they had settled into the place. And Rayna wasn't too worried about them being noticed here. There were 16 other guests, but she didn't guess that many country music fans would be vacationing in the Keys over the holiday break. And if they were, she'd just smile and deal with it.

Twenty minutes later they were down at the dock with Danny, who was joking around with the girls and trying not to flirt too obviously with Rayna. She wasn't really his type—she was too uppity and "polished," for his taste—but damn she was fine. As he was handing out the masks and fins, Rayna politely declined hers. "Just along for the ride," she said.

"Not a swimmer, huh?" Danny asked.

"Not today," she said noncommittally. "Today I'm just here to watch over my girls and make sure they're having fun."

"Well if you're just going out because you want an adult on the boat, I'll be with them the whole time, you know. I can look after them for you."

"I appreciate that; I sure do." Rayna was full-on Southern charm. "But I'm lookin' forward to the boat ride and spending the time with them."

"Suit yourself," Danny said. "I'll bring an extra mask and fins, in case you change your mind."

He showed the girls how to spit in their masks to clear the fog—"Ewww…" they both said as they giggled—and then got the boat engine running and off they went. "You girls ever been snorkeling before?" he asked casually.

"Nope. Never," they replied almost in unison.

"Well you are in for a treat," he said as he gunned the boat to hit some waves especially hard and make the ride that much more exciting. "If we're really lucky, we might see some dolphins." Danny offered a mischievous glance over his shoulder and the girls' eyes got wide as they grinned hopefully at Rayna, delighted by the prospect. "That would be awesome," Daphne beamed.

It was just Rayna, the girls, and a few kids from two other families staying at the inn on this, the second, snorkeling cruise of the day. There were two sisters who were about 19 or 20, Rayna guessed, and a slightly younger but solidly-built boy, Davis, of about 16 or 17. At first Rayna thought they were all three together, but it soon became clear that the sisters had just met Davis while they were all hanging out on the beach. They were open and affable in that way people are when they meet on vacation, but once Davis and Maddie started talking, the older girls lost interest and kept to themselves. And none of the kids seemed to recognize Rayna, which was just fine by her.

In the end, Rayna ended up jumping into the ocean with the girls. They were having such a good time she just had to join them. And Danny was nice, but a little too chatty for her liking at the moment. She left him on the boat while she and Daphne took one of the fish identifier cards Danny provided and tried to find as many different kinds of sea life as they could.

By the time they got back in the boat, Maddie and Davis were hitting it off like a house on fire and mostly ignoring every one else. But since they had been good sports about joining in on some of Rayna and Daphne's fish-identifying expedition, she decided not the press the issue. It was clear, though, that Rayna and Daphne were going to have some competition for Maddie's attention over the next few days since Davis said his family wasn't leaving Islamorada until the day before Rayna and the girls were scheduled to head back to Nashville.